Tainted Sugar
by ThomE.Gemcity-06
Summary: Sequel to: "SUGAR MUG(GED)". Danny eats something he shouldn't. Of course, Steve eats the same thing, but does the SuperSEAL get sick? NO! Of course not. But at least the man doesn't let him commiserate alone.


**a/n: So, this is the SEQUEL to "** _Sugar Mug(ged)_ **". Wow, okay… so this happened. Still pre-slash, flirting** — **maybe inching closer to that line that's probably getting hugged more than toed by now. God, I love these two! Told you I might be back. Enjoy.**

 **Summary:** Danny eats something he shouldn't. Of course, Steve eats the same thing, but does the SuperSEAL get sick? NO! Of course not. But at least the man doesn't let him commiserate alone.

 **HAWAII . FIVE- 0**

* * *

 **Tainted Sugar**

Danny returned to the office exhausted (from a bunch of literal legwork for the case), starving (because he'd been too preoccupied), and irritated (because Step-Stan had a business dinner-party and stole his weekend with Grace). The office was empty, it was the closing of the day, though he saw Kono pullout as he pulled in. No doubt Steve would still be back sooner rather than later.

Grumbling under his breath, he went to their small kitchenette. But the only things in the mini fridge were some leftover ham and pineapple slices (that he wouldn't eat even if it could save his life or even his hair), and some of that goop that Steve said was food but Danny didn't believe him. Slamming the little door, Danny dragged his feet back towards his office, sure that he had some half-eaten Oh! Henry in his drawers somewhere from when he was last feeling 'peckish'—but paused as he was attracted by a pleasant odour coming from, you guessed it, Steve's office—he never thought there would come the day.

Following it almost dreamily, Danny found himself in Steve's office, staring at what Grace would call 'a cute little basket' full of mini muffins. He slowly circled the desk. This almost felt like the time he'd walked into his office to find that atrocious bag of Korean _Sweet Sugar_ —only he was totally going to eat this, no qualms about it. There was no card or tag to indicate its ownership. Rules of the jungle: label your shit! Even then it was a thin veil of ownership. He knew Kono was stealing his pudding from the fridge! She knew she was the only one that he wouldn't go after; she could be a frightening woman.

Leaning closer, almost drooling, there appeared to be two different kinds piled into the basket. One appeared to a simple chocolate chip. The other... his lips twisted; pineapple-blueberry. The choice was obvious. He popped a mini chocolate chip into his mouth, chewing happily, popping another two before he even finished the first. Humming a little as he felt the weight of food in his empty, churning stomach, but then frowning a little and smacking his lips at the overly sugary, almost teeth aching sweetness of it and the odd aftertaste as he swallowed.

Wiping a hand over his mouth, Danny eyed the innocent looking basket, before looking around suspiciously. Was this some sort of trick Steve was pulling on him? A basket of muffins, sitting lonely and unguarded on the Commander's desk, he _knew_ there would be no resistance **or** guilt from the blond detective. It was the perfect trap! and he fell right for it!

He felt an ominous gurgle of his insides and an automatic hand went flat against his stomach. Steve had _put_ something into those muffins!

Jumping into incredulous action (soon to turn into a righteous anger at what was clearing appearing to be an intentional poisoning), Danny started yanking open the man's desk drawers. He knew the insane animal kept a bottle somewhere. There was no way the man's emotionally constipated expression was just a manifestation of his neglected man-feelings!

"Knew it!" Danny twisted off the child-safety cap of the plastic bottle and gulped down a few swallows of the pink, chalky textured liquid gratefully. Giving a grimace as he pulled the bottle away and recapped it. There, that should help counteract whatever he'd just eaten. He chucked it back in the drawer. He gave the not-so-cute, not-so-innocent basket of mini muffins the stink-eye as he moved around Steve's desk, and plopped down onto his large, black leather couch that lay at the wall of windows facing the bullpen.

Now, he'd be ready to have it out with his partner.

 **0 - xH5Ox - 0**

Steve returned to the Iolani Palace Five-Oh office spinning his keys around his finger. Kono and Chin had already knocked-off, but he'd seen Danny's Camaro in the lot and knew, even with no follow-up leads on their current murder case, the detective liked to write his report while the day's events were still fresh in his memory.

"Danny!" he called, passing through the darkened bullpen, the tech table and surrounding screens shut-down for the evening. He didn't receive an answering shout, and his partner's office was dark, but for the faint glow of the bouncing screensaver of a picture of Grace on his screen. On the other hand, the lamp in his office was on. "Danny?" he tried again.

He paused a few steps into his office, noticing the charming little basket of mini muffins on his desk that surely didn't belong, before his attention was jerked to the leather couch that lined the bay of office windows facing the bullpen by familiar grumble.

Danny was half curled up against the arm of the couch, hair slightly askew, his brow peppered with little beads of sweat, his cheeks a little flushed, the corners of his lips inlayed with a downward tick.

"Danny!" Steve exclaimed in shock. "What happened?"

"You."

"Me?" Steve pointed to himself in surprise, his keys jangling in his palm. "What—?"

"You—" Danny pointed an arduous finger at him, his elbow supported by the arm of the couch, hiding half his face so that Steve could only see his cursive blue-eyes and the sweated cowlick of his carded-through bangs. "—and your poisoned muffins!" his finger jolted over to basket on the man's desk like the hand of a clock.

"Those aren't—" Steve tried to explain.

"I ate your tainted goods!" Danny interrupted him. "I swore to myself, I would not let you be the death of me. Bullets, driving off cliffs, boat-jacking... Oh, I see this coming a mile off, I can fight back, defend myself." He flapped his poised hand in a discarding manner. "But this? Poisoned muffins? This isn't the Dark Ages, Steve!"

"Important leaders did have dedicated tasters for this very reason," Steve shoved his keys into his cargos pocket.

Danny scowled at him. "I will not be your Court Jester for this deluded world where you are King."

He stepped further into his office. "Taster—"

"I'm not dying because of you!" Danny snapped in repeat. "The least you can do while I'm on my deathbed—is be a more civilized Neanderthal." He clutched at his stomach with a little groan as he felt the knotted cramp in his guts. It seemed whatever he ate was having a war with the Pepto that he splashed onto the flames.

"Stop exaggerating," the eye roll was an easily recorded gesture that was put into daily use of his _haole_ partner's _per dium_ dramatics. "You've just got an upset tummy." He rubbed his own in mock sympathy.

"Not dying? Not _dying_?" Danny hitched himself up into a further sitting position in the corner of the couch, his arm hooked around the arm to keep him anchored up as he glared at the taller man. "If I'm not exaggerating... then you eat some!" Steve was silent at the blatant challenge. " **Well**?" Danny raised self-satisfied blond brow. "Is the SuperSEAL afraid of a _wittle tummy ache?_ "

"Shut your dirty mouth."

The downward tick of stress on the detective's lips was briefly relieved as he watched the familiar outward micro-expressions that filtered onto the Commander's handsome face at Challenge Accepted. He could never turn such a thing down, especially where Danny was involved.

Lips set into a line. Eyes narrowed. Shoulders set back. Jaw tightened and chin jutted lightly. He didn't take his eyes from the blond curled on the couch as he reached into the basket—pineapple and blueberry (not that he really knew it at the moment)—and popped the mini muffin into his mouth with confidence. He chewed briefly before swallowing, his taste buds sparking at the tasty combination. He even went as far as to open his mouth and lifting his tongue as he bent slightly forward to show his empty maw to the detective. His dark brow flicked in reply.

Danny scowled, lips tight. He did not like the smug look on his partner's face, not at all. Silently, he rose his hooked arm from around the arm, and held up four firm, bluffing fingers. His blond brow twitched back.

"Really, Danno?" Steve asked. " _Five?_ "

Danny shrugged innocently. "I was hungry."

"When are you _not_ eating?" he muttered to himself. He shook his head, "You pilfered—"

"Your poisonous mini muffins—and am clearly paying the price." He interjected with a grimace, feeling weird, squishy motions in his intestines.

"Not my—" he shook his head, interrupting himself. "Never mind." He waved a hand. "You expect me—"

"You're stalling, Steven." Danny cooed.

Steven glared, grabbed four more pineapple-blueberry from the basket, and put them all into his mouth at once, childishly. His cheeks were puffed out like a cute little chipmunk's. It was difficult to chew—at first—but he was a SEAL and he pushed through the ache and cramp of his jaw hinge. Danny watched his efforts, very unimpressed. The four mini muffins slowly worked themselves into a breaded clot in his mouth, having sucked up all the moisture. But damn if he was going to bow under it. He swallowed, the tendons in his neck going taut, the tasteful clump briefly clogged his throat but he bore through it like a man and then he was home free.

Danny wiped the sweat away from his face dispassionately from his face with the point of his tie, as Steve cross his arms arrogantly over his chest, his arm tats climbing out from under his short sleeves as his biceps swelled.

"Mm." Steve wiped a hand across his mouth, disappearing the bit of saliva and crumb at the corners of his mouth from his effort. "Those are pretty good." And he even went as far as to pop another in his mouth (this time, unbeknownst to Danny, it was a chocolate chip mini muffin. Steve hide the grimace well at the overly-sweetness of it, and the odd aftertaste. The blond needn't know.)

"Liar!" Danny declared. He watched the man with anxiety on his own behalf; either Steve was a better actor than Danny had thought, or there was nothing wrong with the muffins that _he_ ate. Of course he would somehow eat the poisoned mini muffins and McGarrett would get the 'yummy', pineapple infested ones. Who could hate him so much that they would turn sweet little mini muffins against him? he knew Jersey wouldn't treat him like this.

"Whose ever these are, they're going to be rather disappointed when I eat them all." Steve commented.

"They're not yours?" Danny questioned warily.

"Of course not."

"Then—?"

"Hey, guys?" Kono called, popping her head into Steve's office, hanging on the door frame and startling the two men slightly. She definitely notice with the smirk that flashed across her lips. "Have you seen—Oh, there it is!" she spied the basket of mini muffins on Steve's desk. She hopped around the SEAL to them and picked it up.

"That's yours?" Steve questioned.

Kono nodded. "It must have gotten dropped in your office by mistake, boss." She furrowed her brows at the dent in the basket, then eyed Danny sweaty complexion. Her brow raised as she looked at them. "Hey... did you guys eat some of these?"

Steve and Danny shared a quick look.

"Maybe," Danny answered slowly. "Why?"

Her gaze shot between the three; basket, Steve, Danny. The pair grew truly nervous when the young officer grinned.

"Agh." Danny groaned. "They really _are_ poisoned or something, aren't they? I knew it. I knew it!" he waved his hand at Steve, and Steve rolled his eyes.

"Or something." Kono agreed. Her grin became ever wider, Steve was sure it had to ache. "Auntie had to go in for some surgery—you know how it is. These were special made to help with that little problem." She snickered. "Well, one of them was."

"Well, that great!" Danny threw his hands up in despair. "That's just great!"

Steve scratched his jaw awkwardly, definitely avoiding eye-contact with the blond.

She didn't have to ask who ate what. Danny was definitely not going to be a happy camper. Kono's grin turned Cheshire. "How many did you guys eat?" there was way too much anticipation in her expression.

"Eleven," Steve answered. "Between us."

"Nine," Danny corrected.

"What?" Steve spun on him. "What do you mean... nine?" he narrowed his eyes.

"I only had three." Smugness would have laced his tone if it weren't for the fact that _he_ was the one that had eaten the tainted mini muffins and not the SEAL. That would have been fantastic if Steve had actually eaten six of the chocolate chip instead. Alas...

"Then what was all of this?" Steve demanded, thrusting four raised fingers into his sweaty face.

"Well... if you'd actually eaten the tainted ones—" Danny said petulantly (missing Steve's eye-twitch, but Kono gleefully did not) "—payback."

"Payback for what?"

Danny gave a single-shouldered shrug. "Pick anything, really."

"You are unbelievable!" Steve exclaimed. "What could I have done to earn you wanting to poison me?"

"What are you even angry about?" Danny scoffed. "You didn't eat the poisoned muffins!" this time, there was no micro-reaction.

"Yeah, but you didn't know that at the time!" Steve accused him.

Danny made a flippy-floppy hand gesture, brushing Steve's concern aside nonchalantly (Steve responded with a rather indignant noise), before he shifted his position on the couch to the edge, his hands wrapped around his ominously gurgling stomach with a repressed grunt. "I took Pepto," he said hopefully, mostly just to reassure himself.

"Brah," Kono burst into laugher. "This stuff it no joke." The two men broke their glaring contest to look at her. "You have a long night ahead of you." She was gasping now with breathless laughter. "I suggest you head home before it's too late." She clapped Steve on the shoulder as she passed him to the door, "You too, boss." She skipped out the door, giving Danny a wave, and her call back from the bullpen was drowning with open mirth: "Don't forget to drink lots of water, you two!"

"Kono!" Danny cursed after her. He gave a little groan at the jolting movement that had accompanied it. There was a pause of quiet in the office as the two men were left alone, before Danny popped up to his feet. He forced himself straight, his hands clenched at his side as his stomach spasmed under his buttoned shirt. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He went to pass the Reservist, when a hand caught his arm. "What are you doing?" he was shaking from the tension of taut muscles, clammed up tight with invasive measures, but it was only a matter of time before he was ambushed

"Gimme your keys." Steve told him.

Danny gapped. "Oh, my god!" he exclaimed. "You can't just let me have my own damned car for this personal emergency? Get off me!" he tried to shake the man's hold. "You can drive it tomorrow, you inappropriately-timed possessive control freak!" he growled.

"Look at you, you shouldn't be driving."

Danny wrenched his arm free. "I don't have time for this!" he rushed from the office.

"Danny!" Steve called after him.

"Hurry the fuck up, Steven!" Danny snapped back in a harsh bark that had Steve running after him, rushing to lock the office doors up. By the time he was in the foyer, Danny was already in the elevator, in no mood to wait for his partner. Steve took the stairs, arriving at the Palace doors the same time as the irate and tightly rushing blond.

Danny nearly chucked his keys at his friend as they crossed the short distance of the lot to the detective's reserved space; Steve's blue Silverado parked the space over. The dark-haired man unlocked the silver Camaro electronic key fob, the ailing man reaching the car before him.

The car soon peeled from the empty, streetlight lit lot; and this was one of the times that Danny was glad for Steve's need to ignore the assigned speed limits and general road rules of a civilized society.

"Shut up," Danny told him through gritted teeth, even though the man hadn't said a thing since the office. His wrapped his arms around his middle, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he rode through the roil of his intestines weakening. He groaned. And muttered pitifully, "I can't tell if I want to puke more, or do something that is inappropriate for us to talk about—and that's saying something, considering it's us."

He cracked his eyes open to look at Steve when the man didn't even give a noncommittal grunt at his comment—and he discovered that this was not the way to his blessedly empty, below shitty (ignore it) apartment. "What are—?" he started in confusion before delayed realization dawned. "No, Steven! Do you have no boundaries? Some things simply need to be done in private!"

Steve gave him a sideways glance, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. "I thought—"

"Oh, you thought?" Danny snapped. "When has that ever ended well for me?" he muttered under his breath.

" _I thought_ ," Steve repeated, calmly. "That perhaps you might fare better with a _real_ bathroom, as opposed to that backwater, gas station, horror film toilet that blocks half your doorway. In a healthy environment that does not include cockroaches and things growing under the sink."

"Now who's the one exaggerating?" he harrumphed.

"An understatement, I think." Steve corrected quietly under his breath and shrouded in the hum of the engine so the blond didn't hear.

"I guess you get your way," the blond grumbled inaudible under his breath, cutting a glare at his friend. "It's a little late to turn around now," he answered tightly.

Danny slapped a hand over his face, giving a miserable moan as he sunk lower into his seat, ignoring the seatbelt that cut into his jugular. And maybe he had thoughts of slumping down more to see if it would put him out of his momentary pitiful existence. "This is even more humiliating than when Nick Alphonse pantsed me in tenth grade in front of the entire cheerleading squad." He mumbled. "Granted, that landed me my first girlfriend... But that's besides the point; I still kicked his ass. It was a principle thing."

"Danno," Steve took his hand from the wheel and touched Danny's shoulder. Danny hunched his shoulders further in a properly petulant response. "Perhaps... a certain memory-foamed mattress when all is said and done?" he offered, enticing the shorter man. It was his golden ticket.

Danny cut narrowed eyes at the man. "Did you...? You are **unbelievable!** " he exclaimed. "You... you..." he suddenly turned from the man. Steve knew that bed was his top five loves; after Grace, Steve, Five-0/Ohana, and New Jersey/Family. "You're an utter opportunist **,** taking advantage me right now."

Steve gave a small grin, it flashing bright in a passing streetlight, before it was gone; ignoring his own twinge in his intestines as he palmed the steering wheel round, smoothly turning the Camaro into his empty drive on Piikio Street. "I'll take it where I can get it."

Danny whipped his seatbelt off and was already out of the car before Steve even turned it off. He quickly got out and onto the porch where Danny was vibrating with impatience as Steve got out his house keys.

"I swear to god, Steven." Danny cursed him quietly, crowding the taller man in his aggrieve-ment. "If you don't get this fucking door open right now, you're not going to like what happens next!"

"It's open! It's open!" Steve told him. He didn't even have time to extract his keys before Danny barged passed into the darkness of his living room, shoving him into his doorframe. With only a huff in response, he shut the door behind him and just turned on the lamp next to the couch, lighting the room in a soft glow, as Danny let out a barking curse, catching his shin. Hopping to the bathroom, the door slammed shut. "This is going to be a long night," Steve sighed, toeing off his shoes.

...

Danny spent several hours in and out of the bathroom. Steve turned the living room television on, turning up the volume on a late-night game show channel with lots of cheering and obscuring noise, in the hope of giving the blond a further curtain of privacy. Danny's tie, patent leather loafers, and his top buttons discarded and popped along the way. In the moments that Danny did actually venture from the bathroom, Steve didn't say a single word, and instead plied the sweaty, grouchy blond with water, orange juice, and sport drinks with electrolytes. And if during this time, Steve paid his own short visit to the bathroom in the master bedroom—well... Danny didn't need to know about that.

...

Late into the night, Danny seemed to finally get passed it. Kono was not joking around, no matter how hard she had laughed. He was tired, still a little tense and jittery. But Steve's shower helped, cleaned the clammy sweats away with it. And he didn't care what people might think that he actually had a second toothbrush necking with Steve's in the cup at the corner of the master sink; not when he was nice and minty-fresh right now. The blond man gladly wore a borrowed tee; that smelled more like Steve than it did laundry detergent. He was sure that the SEAL had given him this purposefully instead of one out the dresser; it wasn't overly stinky, so he didn't mind. It just smelt like Steve.

Even though they joked about, Danny was intimately familiar with Steve's musk. He was sure he must smell like Steve just as much as himself on any given day, with the amount of conscious or unconscious physical contact between them (whether just a hand on the back or around the shoulder at the office, or Steve tackling him to the ground from a rain of bullets). If he could 'smell' Steve, then he knew the gorilla had his back, that he safe and protected. It was weird and sappy, but it was their weird and sappy.

Danny stepped from the master bathroom, clad in Steve used tee and his boxers, blond hair darker with damp, sticking nonchalantly up after getting rubbed dry with the towel. The bedside lamp was on. Steve was already clad in a pair of sleep pants, on his side of the bed (yes, they'd done this enough times to establish sides; so sue them and their weird relationship), under the covers, flipping through a magazine as he waited for his platonic bedfellow.

He looked up, flicking the magazine away into the chair in the corner of his room. "Alright?" he watched Danny flick off the light and walk over to his side of the bed, a smile lightly curving the corner of his lips. He loved it when Danny 'let his hair down' he never seemed this 'intimate' with anyone else but Grace and him. He liked it.

"Fine," Danny told him, climbing under the covers and laying down with a soft sigh. God, this mattress was a match made in heaven!

Steve turned off the lamp and shifted down until he was laying. The glow of the moon off the water shone in through his bedroom windows. He turned slightly onto his side, arm folded under his head as he looked at his partner.

"Shut up," Danny told him, even though the other man had yet to say anything further, just like in the Camaro on the ride to the house. He shifted, turning on his side, his back open to Steve with a clear invitation.

Steve scooted over, pasting himself to the smaller man's back, arm wrapped around him, and cuddled the blond to his chest. "Yes, Danno." He murmured meekly in response, nuzzling his nose into the damp hair at the back of Danny's neck. At the moment, wearing his shirt, having used his shampoo and soap, Danny smelt more like him than himself.

"This is all your fault," Danny noted, his eyes closed. One arm was bent and tucked under his pillow, the other interlaced his fingers with Steve's.

"Yes, Danno."

"You're going to help me plot our revenge," Danny continued, "Take the blame if Kono catches us."

There was a brief hesitation on Steve's part, as reckless as Danny always told him he was, the SEAL knew better than to mess with Kono Kalakaua. "Yes, Danno." He exhaled, his warm breath curling around Danny's nape.

"I want breakfast in the morning," Danny told him next.

"Yes, Danno." There was zero hesitation on this account. He liked cooking for Danny and it was probably the only time the detective ate 'real' food.

"And then we'll never speak of this again."

"Agreed." There was a moment of quiet between the two before Steve whispered, "I love you, Danno."

"I love you, too, Steve." Danny said, and the followed it up with, "Love you enough to do what I just did in your house."

"I thought you said that we were never to talk about this again?" Steve wondered.

"I make the rules, I get to say when they're bent."

"Then—"

"No. This does not give you a free pass to tie some criminal to a tree in the middle of the jungle and communicate to the primates to do your bidding." Danny told him in the tone of an exhausted school-teacher scolding the same child for one thing or another, day after day.

Steve sighed and pouted, but he didn't psuh it. Instead, he steered them back to the conversation they had started with. "You must trust me a lot, then." He couldn't help it if he sounded smug.

"I've known Rachel most my adult life and still haven't passed gas in front of her," he said in answer.

"Wow. Wow." Steve chuckled. "Now I know what we have is special. Don't think I didn't smell that bomb even with you cranking the windows down. That was the first day of our partnership."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, babe." But he didn't completely deny it. "I was having a hell of a day... Getting drafted as your partner—five minutes in I get shot—"

"Grazed,"

"—blasted out a window—"

"I'll give you that one."

"—a shoot out on a Chinese freighter..."

"Yeah,"

"So maybe I got a little indigestion."

" _Or_ ," Steve drew out the word. "You just instantly fell in love and could not help but show your utter trust in me by expending gas in a confined space with your one and only best-friend Steven."

"You are one delusional man, you know that?" Danny asked him seriously. "At this _very moment_ you are crowing about my... farting... in your presence as if you've one that Jackpot or something."

"The Jackpot to your heart," Steve told him in a low, husky voice.

Danny's brow scrunched. "That metaphor doesn't even make sense,"

"Love isn't supposed to make sense."

"I repeat: de-lu-sion-al. A delusional man."

"But I'm _your_ delusional man."

"When did this turn into some rom. movie where the guy realizes that his best-friend is truly and honestly bat-crackers-crazy, and a possessive, obsessive, stalker, control-monger—who then takes advantage of said guy whilst in a vulnerable state?" he huffed.

"You knew exactly what you were getting into."

"No holds barred." Danny agreed, softly fond. "You were a lunatic then, and you're a lunatic now." He disentangled his fingers from Steve.

Steve paused, his brow furrowed a little. He couldn't see Danny's face, could only go by his voice (doting) and his body (relaxed). It seemed okay, but... "Danny—"

"I drank that Kool-aid, and now I have you jacking my car and forever breaking inappropriately into my apartment, blowing things up." He gave a light chuckle and little head shake, "Have you seen the Robot Chicken skit of that Kool-aid Dude? At least I don't have to deal with **that.** " Danny put an elbow into his partner's stomach and gently nudged him back before he could respond.

"Ooof," Steve rolled back onto his back. "What was that for?"

But Danny was already twisting around to face him. "Shut up," he tugged his shirt round so it wasn't all twisted around, shifted so he was pressed against Steve's side and used his chest as his new-found pillow, an arm looping around his waist. Danny took a deep breath, breathing the man in before he settled completely.

Steve chuckled softly, and accommodated to the new position easily, his arms going around his best-friend. "Better?" he murmured, petting the down hairs at the nape of the man's neck.

"Mmh." Danny mumbled as he nuzzled his cheek against the muscled peck underneath it, able to feel the stead _buh-buh_ of the man's heart from where his ear was positioned, just as he had intended. He let Steve once again combed his fingers through his half-dry hair. "You definitely make a good pillow, if nothing else."

"I try," he chuckled, adjusting the bedspread over them.

Danny felt Steve give a minute shift, a brief tension going through the man's body underneath him. He opened his eyes and started to lift his head. He wasn't so much of an ass that he wouldn't compromise his position if Steve wasn't comfortable either. "Do you—?" And then he got a gentle whiff of what Steve had just so casually put out there. "Ugh!" he quickly put a hand over his nose. "Not cool, Steven!" Danny exclaimed.

"What?" Steve questioned in a tone of picture innocence. But Danny knew the Reservist to be the farthest thing from innocent.

Danny started to shove away from the man's chest, but Steve tightened his arms around him, holding him fast. "Steve!" he tried to struggle from the taller man's hold, but Steve had the upper hand; what with Danny almost covering his nose **and** mouth so that he might survive this—if only to kick McGarrett's ass later when he was in the position to do so.

"I only wanted to show you how much I love and trust you back—with something a little more in your repertoire—after what we shared tonight."

"We are not in the Jurassic Era, Steve!" Danny's retort was stifled, but no less exuberant. "This is the 21st Century, the current peak of civilised society! Meaning, you don't club a person over the head and drag them back to your cave to mate. And you certainly don't fart in bed to symbolize your love for someone. You don't fart in bed in general! We are not animals and we are certainly not teenagers! You don't fart in bed, okay? You just **don't!** " one arm was trapped between their bodies, the other hand was used to plug his nose and it was the only available limb to punctuate his point—which was a mistake.

"Hm…" Steve just hummed in response, hugging the man tighter to his chest and grabbed the man's flailing hand without trouble. "The principle of the affection is still the same, Danno."

"The princ—!" Danny groaned. Why did he even try? It was like a girl getting with a guy because she thought she was the only one that could fix him.

Realizing that he wasn't going to get out of this, not in his condition or position, he shifted into Steve's hold, turning his head and burying his face into the dip at the center of the man's chest. He breathed his own breaths interlaced with a more pleasant station of Steve's musk, not the one he'd just experienced.

"Are you trying to suffocate yourself with my chest?" Steve questioned in amusement, feeling the blond's huffing and puffing, his moist breath. "It wasn't _that_ bad."

"I'm fine with smelling the outside of you, but Christ, I want nothing to do with the inside!" Danny enlightened him.

" _You_ 're the animal," Steve crowed in delight. "Nose pressed against me, smelling me."

" _You're_ the one that seems intent on 'scent-marking' me," Danny challenged him, raising his head to glare at the man as Steve dipped his chin to smirk at him. "Your shampoo, your soap… don't think I don't know that you sweated it out in this shirt, Steve."

Steve voice when down an octave, going husky and growly, vibrating in his chest, "And don't think I didn't notice when not a single complaint on the matter left those loud lips of yours." He winked.

Danny stared at him, silent, his tongue flicking out to moisten his bottom lip. "Shuddup," he told him. He wiped his breath's moisture from Steve's chest with a swipe of his hand and then laid his chest back onto his chest.

"Yes, Danno." Steve kissed the top of the man's blond head in final goodnight and the closing of their conversation, pushing his fingers into his soft, mussed hair.

 _f_

 **HAWAII . FIVE - 0**

So, I honestly didn't think I would write more for the **SUGAR Series** , but I was trying to write an **Hawaii Five-0 x Hangover story** that I kind of got stuck on, then this happened. Hope you enjoyed. And perhaps there will be more to look forward to? Please, tell me if you think I should turn this into **Slash** instead of leaving it in **Pre-Slash** , because I'm definitely afraid that if I _do_ push these two men across that line, I'll end up wrecking it. But then, I am a worrier and procrastinator.

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